Motorola to Send FCC Revised Device for Unused Spectrum

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) Motorola will present to the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday an updated version of a wireless device designed to operate on unlicensed television spectrum.

The FCC has examined several such devices from Motorola and companies such as
Microsoft and Philips Electronics. The devices are intended to work on unused
portions of the roughly 300 megahertz dedicated for over-the-air television use,
known as "white space."

The FCC is conducting lab tests to determine whether the devices can detect
competing signals, avoid them and find other vacant portions of spectrum to
transmit without interference.

Motorola's white space device relies primarily on a database of existing
spectrum licensees to dodge interfering signals. The new device does not change
its database function, which the company says is the primary way it avoids
broadcast signals and other services like wireless microphones in sports
stadiums or concert arenas.

Motorola has updated its wireless device to incorporate sensors for adjacent
channels, using "techniques commonly utilized in cellular phones and
two-way radios," according to a draft of the FCC presentation.

The sensors are designed to detect "nomadic" wireless microphones
to avoid interfering with circumstances such as "roving, unplanned
news-gathering operations," the draft document says.

Steve Sharkey, Motorola's senior director of regulatory and spectrum policy,
said Tuesday that the new device includes a "switchable attenuator"
that will detect low-power signals even in the presence of stronger adjacent
channels.

Sharkey said Motorola originally focused on the geographic databases to avoid
interference, but the company decided to update the device because the FCC was
focusing on detecting receivers. "We thought it was important to get
improvements to the device to the FCC to help them with their testing," he
said.

The FCC has not taken a position on how unlicensed television spectrum should
be used or whether it should be licensed. To date, the commission's test results
have not definitively shown that the devices can work without interfering with
licensed slices of the spectrum.

The National Association of Broadcasters and wireless microphone
manufacturers have protested attempts by Motorola and other companies to operate
on the unused spectrum.

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